{"id":2339,"date":"2003-03-10T10:05:27","date_gmt":"2003-03-10T13:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/bb\/viewtopic.php?p=336"},"modified":"2010-05-09T10:06:13","modified_gmt":"2010-05-09T13:06:13","slug":"e-mail-just-say-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/2003\/03\/10\/e-mail-just-say-no\/","title":{"rendered":"E-mail: just say no!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dave Winer’s Scripting News<\/a> pointed<\/a> me at Ole Eichhorn<\/a>‘s article, The Tyranny of Email<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I maintain that programming cannot be done in less than three-hour windows.\u00a0 It takes three hours to spin up to speed, gather your concentration, shift into “right brain mode”, and really focus on a problem.\u00a0 Effective programmers organize their day to have at least one three-hour window, and hopefully two or three.\u00a0 (This is why good programmers often work late at night.\u00a0 They don’t get interrupted as much…)<\/p>\n

…One of the key attributes of email is that it queues messages.\u00a0 Unlike face-to-face\u00a0conversation and ‘phone calls, people can communicate via email without both paying attention at the same time.\u00a0 You pick the moments at which you pay attention to email.\u00a0 But many people leave their email client running continuously.\u00a0 This is the biggest baddest reason why email hurts your productivity.\u00a0 If you leave your email client running, it means anyone anytime can interrupt what you’re doing.\u00a0 Essentially they pick the moments at which you pay attention.\u00a0 (Even some\u00a0random spammer who is sending you a crappy ad for a get-rich scheme.)\u00a0 This is bad.<\/p>\n

…There are three stages to this badness.\u00a0 Stage one is configuring your email client to present alerts when you receive an email.\u00a0 Don’t do this.\u00a0 Stage two is configuring your email client to make noise when you receive an email.\u00a0 Don’t do this.\u00a0 Stage three is running your email client all the time.\u00a0 Don’t do this, either.\u00a0 To be effective, you must pick the moments at which you’re going to receive email.\u00a0 I know this goes against common wisdom.\u00a0 Just about everyone I know runs their client all the time, has it configured to make noise, and may even have it present alerts when an email is received.\u00a0 Don’t do it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thanks, Ole! I needed that. The same is true of RSS news aggregators, but even more so. I’m quitting Eudora<\/a> and NetNewsWire<\/a> right now, and will leave them off for at least four hours. Just one more update, and I’ll quit. Yes. I swear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dave Winer’s Scripting News pointed me at Ole Eichhorn‘s article, The Tyranny of Email: I maintain that programming cannot be done in less than three-hour windows.\u00a0 It takes three hours to spin up to speed, gather your concentration, shift into “right brain mode”, and really focus on a problem.\u00a0 Effective programmers organize their day to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meta"],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Rainer Brockerhoff","author_link":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/author\/rbrockerhoff\/"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1q3Zc-BJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}